The “TMNT: The Last Ronin” Film Isn’t Dead

Back in 2024, Paramount Pictures announced plans for a live-action R-rated film adaptation of the acclaimed IDW comic title “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin” from 2020.

The comic mini-series tells a dark, mature story that unfolds in a future in which all but one of the Ninja Turtles is dead. New York City is now a battle-ravaged wasteland, and the lone surviving turtle embarks on a seemingly hopeless mission seeking justice for the family he lost. He fights Shredder’s grandson and his synthetic minions with all four turtles’ signature weapons.

Tyler Burton Smith (“Boy Kills World”) was penning the script for the film and Ilya Naishuller was in talks to direct. Then, back in November last year, the project was put on hold in favour of a more family-friendly “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” reboot.

Speaking with EW this week, “The Last Ronin” comic co-writers Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz say the film adaptation of the work isn’t as dead as some might think. Eastman says:

“I don’t think the movie’s off the table. I think it’s just delayed. Speaking with all the folks at Viacom and Paramount and Nickelodeon who love the Turtles and really have done a fantastic job, whether it be the 2012 series to Mutant Mayhem, I don’t think it will not happen. I think it will happen.

One of the things that anybody I’ve talked to at the companies, they know the fans love and support all things Last Ronin, as much as another group of fans love everything Point Grey [Pictures, production company], Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and everybody has done with the whole Mutant Mayhem series. We’re not disheartened at all.”

The news comes just days after actress Judith Hoag, who played the live-action April O’Neil in the 1990s Turtles films, revealed at Roanoke’s Big Lick Comic-Con that she had “been approached” to appear in “The Last Ronin” movie before it stalled.